Saturday, June 29, 2002

Fascinating article. here's an excerpt. UNMASKING 'MARTYRDOM' : where suicide is not part of a clinically obvious mental illness, like serious depression, schizophrenia or other serious conditions, the shame that accompanies the young person's despair can be traced to long standing family dysfunction. The young person invariably feels that the adult care givers in their life have betrayed them.
This difficult fact means that a most common feature in families with suicidal young people is 'scapegoating', the attributing of blame to where it does not belong. This process serves to regulate the intense guilt experienced by, usually, parents, when they gain insight to their long-term dysfunction having contributed to their child's despair. Turning to the Palestinian community. What is virtually impossible at the moment for the Palestinian community to acknowledge is the degree to which their leader, their father figure, Mr. Arafat, has betrayed them. Read the whole article.

Friday, June 28, 2002

"The world hates us and always will," a neighbor said to me on the stairs before wishing me a good day. "What more do you need than the Holocaust?" He is Sephardi, without familial memory of Europe; but the bitter, new mood of besieged Israel has penetrated everywhere. In a full-page newspaper ad urging Israelis to boycott European nations that now refuse to sell Israel military equipment, employees of the country's military industry wrote, "In the moments of truth, we learn yet again that we can only rely on ourselves." Even the left isn't immune from the growing sense of siege. In a recent interview, the liberal novelist Amos Oz confessed he's haunted by his father's observation that, before the Holocaust, European graffiti read, "JEWS TO PALESTINE," only to be transformed in our time into, "JEWS OUT OF PALESTINE." The message to Jews, noted Oz: "Don't be here and don't be there. That is, don't be." Keep reading.

from the Jerusalem Post:
Jun. 28, 2002
Chasing terrorists with the Goldsteins of Memphis
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
When the phone rang at his home in Memphis, Tennessee last month, Sidney Goldstein got an offer which he said he could not possibly refuse.
On the line was his 25-year-old son, Ben, who had just immigrated to Israel, having completed college and business training in the US. The offer: to police the streets of Israel together.
The younger Goldstein had followed up on a phone number which he said he first saw printed in The Jerusalem Post earlier this year about a new, volunteer Border Police unit that was looking for people who had served at some point in the past in the IDF, to help the understaffed and overworked security forces manning Israel's porous seam line.
"I knew this was something my father would like to do," the younger Goldstein, who had served as a combat soldier in the Givati brigade back in 1996 as a foreign volunteer before moving to Jerusalem, said yesterday.
"Let's do it," was his 52-year-old father's reply, who quickly bought his round trip air ticket.
Over the past two weeks, the Goldsteins joined a group of 30 other volunteers who did what your average border policeman does for his three-year military service: they went on night time patrols, manned spot roadblocks, looked for terrorists, and arrested Palestinians traveling without permits in Israel. "You can say that it was great bonding between father and son," said Sidney Goldstein, a business consultant in civilian life, who was certified to take the program since he underwent training on a "Shomer Yisrael" program a decade ago.
"We're also southern so we're not afraid of weapons," Sidney noted.
Participants in the 12-day program, which starts with two days of comprehensive training and is followed by 10 days of active duty, are mixed with members of the regular Border Police force.
In fact, one of the members of the latest volunteer program, Masad Abu Ajaj, a 24-year-old Beduin from the village of Ksaifa, was with the Border Police force that intercepted the would-be suicide bomber caught near Beit Shemesh Monday night.
Both Goldsteins pointed out that the volunteers received no special privileges and suffered no reverse discrimination because of their unique status.
"We were just treated like one of the guys, coupled with a lot of respect for what we were doing," Ben said, talking about this service which took him on patrols from Maccabim to Kalkilya. "It's something everybody should do," his father added.
"The security situation in the country is such where people could no longer sit on the fence or the living room sofas anymore," said the commanding officer in charge of the program, Sasson Hamam.
He noted that since the inauguration of the all-volunteer unit at the end of April, about 10 foreigners have taken part in the project that has attracted 150 people in the past two months.
Another recent volunteer, 31-year-old Rogerio Ram Halpern from Brazil, said that doing the volunteer stint was the best way to directly connect with the country during this difficult period. "Now is the time," he said.
Volunteers interested in participating in the program should call (08) 977-0484/6.

An article which appeared this week in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadeeda, and translated by Palestinian Media Watch, criticizes US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as "the dark-complexioned lady" whose policies have "dealt a blow to the image of the African-American in the eyes of the vast majority of the world's inhabitants." Keep reading.

Institutionalized Iraqi child abuse, translated by MEMRI:
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan published a series of three articles quoting the memoirs of a former Iraqi officer who was born and raised in Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and who had since joined the Iraqi opposition. The newspaper prefaced the articles by saying that "the American people would be astonished to discover that Iraq has its own version of 'Halloween' horror movies." The following are excerpts:

"[In his memoirs], he describes some 'scary social practices' by the leaders of the local clans in Tikrit, the birthplace of the Iraqi dictator... Horrifying customs that are akin to an 'incubator' that breeds snakes... He said that he was five-years old when his uncle asked him to slaughter a chicken as befitting 'a member of the Oujeil clan in Tikrit'... When he was unable to do so, his uncle took the knife from his hand and cut the chicken's neck in such a way that the blood drenched the child's face and clothes ... this was the first lesson in what the Tikriti clans call 'hardening [a child's] heart and desensitizing him to the look of blood'..."

"The former Iraqi officer continued to say that when he was six-years old his uncle started training him to use guns... 'He gave me an Iranian made rifle with a very strong recoil and told me to shoot a boulder used as a target. When I missed several times – as expected from a small child – my uncle picked up the 'target' and threw it at me, no matter where it hit me... And even at this early age, if anyone did anything to 'hurt our manhood,' we were not supposed to complain to our elders, but to spray his chest with bullets, then pick up the empty shells and hand them to his relatives as 'blood money'... However, if we killed someone who was not a member of the [Tikriti] clans, like the Kurds, we did not need blood money... We killed Kurds for free...' he said."

"Among the practices of the [Tikriti] clans is [taking] children to graveyards and forc[ing] them to go down into the grave with the dead body, then remove the shroud from the deceased face. The purpose? To honor the dead and to desensitize children to death..."

Remember the Saudi and Egyptian blood libels about Jews using Christian and Muslim blood in holiday pastries? Check out this latest obscenity from Syria. MEMRI: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad recently extended the term of Defense Minister Field Marshal Mustafa Tlass for another two years beyond mandatory retirement age, in appreciation of his service and his close connection with his father, former president Hafez Al-Assad. Tlass is one of the founding fathers of Syria's current Ba'ath regime and has been a key figure in Syria for the past 30 years. Hafez Assad himself had already postponed Tlass's retirement once.
Tlaas first published his book on the Damascus Blood Libel in 1983. The second edition, published in 1986, was purportedly more 'scientific' than the first; footnotes were added to ground the allegations, and the appendix featured photocopies of official documents (with accompanying Arabic translation) exchanged by the French Consulate in Damascus, the French General Consulate in Alexandria, and the French government, regarding the affair. Included in the book was a photograph of the priest's headstone, on which it was inscribed that he was murdered by Jews. Keep reading.

Looks like the bureaucratic ninnies are going to have to listen to the will of the people and let pilots carry guns: "Last week the House Subcommittee on Aviation approved legislation to force the Transportation Department to create a program to certify and train up to 1,400 pilots to carry pistols. The legislation would also restrict liability, so that pilots acting in good faith couldn't be sued for shooting a hijacker. The full Transportation Committee is expected to vote on the bill this week. In July it'll likely come before the full House for a vote--it's expected to pass overwhelmingly." Keep reading.Write your congressman about this!

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

Get thyself to Starbucks and order a soy mocha! The islamofascist nutjobs are organizing a Starbucks boycott. Why, you ask? because Schultzie, erstwhile CEO and diehard entrepreneur (if you haven't read his book regarding the founding of Starbucks you should - it is inspiring,) has done the unacceptable in this day of PC pandering dared to speak the truth: "What is going on in the Middle East is not an isolated part of the world. The rise of anti-Semitism is at an all-time high since the 1930s. . . . If you leave this synagogue tonight and go back to your home and ignore this, then shame on us." Read it, then go and get that latte.

Monday, June 24, 2002

A bit O humor...A story is told of a Jewish man who was riding on the subway reading a Nazi
newspaper. A friend of his, who happened to be riding in the same subway
car, noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he approached the
newspaper reader: "Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading a
Nazi newspaper?"
Moshe replied: "I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find?
Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through
assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to the
Nazi newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the
media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so
much better!".

This is the Islamofascist deathcult Israel is facing: Abu Ali, like many 12-year-olds living in Gaza, has dreams of eternity..: "I hope to be a martyr," he said. "I hope when I get to 14 or 15 to explode myself." His mother, Om Muhammed, is eager to help her son, one of six children, accomplish his goal. She helps him tug on a toy suicide bomber costume in her living room as she serves mint tea to a visitor. The get-up is dauntingly convincing, but is harmlessly made of electrical tape, plywood and spare wire. Keep reading.

CLICK HERE to send the following message to the President, Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense, congressional leaders, Prime Minister Sharon, his cabinet, and selected Members of the Knesset. Feel free to change the wording when you get to the ACTION ALERT page after you click.

Dear President Bush:

We stand fast with Israel. We are concerned about the safety of their civilian citizens of this democratic country, once again victimized by today’s vicious suicide/homicide attack on innocent school children.

The United States becomes an accomplice in this terror by advocating the formation of an interim Palestinian state. Any form of Palestinian statehood will only reinforce and reward terrorism. Official recognition will create a more efficient launching pad to accomplish the Islamic Jihad goal of Israel’s genocide.

On September 11th, the worldwide war against Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition of freedom and democracy reached the United States. Both Israel and America are being held hostage by radical Islamic Jihad, the ruthless unconscionable perpetrators of terror.

Sacrificing Israel in an attempt to achieve “peace in our time” will result in the opposite effect.